


Battles

by Tedronai



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen, Post-AMoL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tedronai/pseuds/Tedronai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Androl and Pevara confront a rogue channeller and find more than they bargained for... in a way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battles

**Author's Note:**

> Secret Santa prompt fill for the Tumblr WoT fandom's gift exchange. Merry Christmas, Lily~

The inn was in the back end of nowhere, it seemed; there was no real village, just a crossroads and a couple of farms scattered loosely around. To Androl it looked almost like the outskirts of a village, if someone had forgotten to place the village there.

“That makes no sense,” Pevara said. Of course she would have caught the image.

“Maybe,” Androl replied. “But that’s what it looks like.”

After a moment she shrugged. “Alright. It does, a little bit.” She nudged her horse into motion down the road. “Let’s get this done, then. I miss civilisation already.”

 

Their mission was simple enough, this time. Rumours of an Asha’man taking up residence around these parts had reached the Black Tower, yet everyone who had earned the Dragon pin was accounted for and nobody should have been here, certainly not for long enough to make his presence such a widely known fact. That left a few options, but one of them was that there was a rogue channeller falsely claiming the title of Asha’man, and such an impostor would need to be brought to justice.

 _‘No channelling so far,’_ Androl sent over the bond as they reached the three-storied building.

 _‘Nobody channels all the time,’_ Pevara replied in kind. “See to the horses,” she said out loud.

Androl tipped an imaginary hat. “Yes, ma’am.” He could feel her rolling her eyes at his back as he led the horses away.

 

She had acquired rooms by the time he got in and was waiting for supper at a table near the back of the common room. He took the saddlebags upstairs before joining her at the table. “Any news?”

“Nobody particularly suspicious,” she replied. “I’d have alerted you if I found anything interesting, you know,” she added, a touch wryly.

He shrugged. “I do like talking the old-fashioned way sometimes, too.”

She raised an eyebrow but kept her thoughts to herself. “We can talk,” she said instead. “We do talk. Almost every day.”

“We do,” he agreed. “But—” His sentence was cut short when he felt channelling nearby. He looked at her, knowing that the bond had already provided her with all of the same information that he had. _‘So it is convenient. Never said it wasn’t,’_ he sent silently even as he moved towards the stairs. She didn’t grace the comment with a conscious response, but he thought she was suppressing a smug smile.

 

The channeller wasn’t difficult to find. He bolted as soon as he saw them — even though Androl wasn’t wearing his uniform, Pevara’s presence with her Aes Sedai features must have given him away as a Warder or an Asha’man — but the gateway he made was easy to follow. Once the man noticed they had given chase, he offered no further resistance and slumped down to sit on a tree stump. Pevara shielded him on the spot, although he made no efforts to keep channelling.

“Who are you and what is your allegiance?” the Aes Sedai demanded.

The man, approximately in his middle years, looked up at her, puzzlement writ on his face. “What do you mean?” he asked slowly. “You came after me, didn’t you? Why’d you do that for if you don’t know who I am?”

“We truly do not know,” Androl replied in a soothing voice, earning a wave of wry amusement over the bond. “That’s why we’re here. We heard of an Asha’man staying hereabouts but there shouldn’t have been one and we came to investigate.”

“And you’re the ‘Asha’man’ of this rumour, aren’t you?” Pevara asked. She felt impatient, but at least her voice was less threatening now. “What’s your name?”

The man looked confused. “Asha’man…” he repeated, as though the word was unfamiliar to him. Then he shook his head. “I have not claimed that title in years… since before the war. If someone here has believed me one, I apologise.”

“But you were one, then?” Androl asked, sending what he hoped were pacifying thoughts in the general direction of Pevara, who was mentally grumbling about how difficult it could be to answer a simple question.

“I was, yes.” The man stood up and made as if to salute, then changed his mind. “Asha’man Wells, I was, Dan Wells, from Whitebridge. I made off with a— my partner, when Taim’s regime began to turn sour.”

Androl snorted; Taim’s regime had never been anything but sour, in his opinion, but he supposed his experiences weren’t universal. “What happened to this partner of yours?” he asked.

Wells looked away. “That was before the Cleansing, sir. He didn’t make it. Been alone since.”

“But why did you not come back?” Pevara asked in turn, her voice still business-like but her feelings were those of sympathy and confusion. “Surely you must have heard that Taim no longer leads the Black Tower.”

“No, ma’am,” Wells said, shaking his head. “I haven’t heard a thing, out here. Not exactly been trying to hear, you see. Figured I might not be welcome anyway, being deserter and all. I fought in the war, where I could find battles as needed fighting, but I never went near an Asha’man again.”

Androl sighed; would there be no end to the hurt that Taim had caused? “You are welcome if you ever want to come back,” he said. “Will you come with us to the inn at least? We can talk more there. I promise — and yes, Pevara does as well — that we will not attempt to force you. It is no crime,” he added, “for a channeller to not be associated with the Black Tower. Only the claiming of a title one has no right to… But it would turn out that you do have the right to that title, Asha’man Wells.”

The bond carried over a wry, _‘You don’t think you might be overdoing it a bit?’_ but out loud Pevara simply said, “I promise I won’t try to take you back against your will.” Whatever she thought of the situation, Androl was glad that she saw the need to be reassuring and acted accordingly.

It took a few moments, but eventually Wells nodded. “Very well. I will listen to what you have to say.”

 

Androl and Pevara didn’t return to the Black Tower until the next day, having spent the night at the inn. The mood was somber as they made their report to Logain; the mission had been a success, the case of the mystery Asha’man had been solved quickly and without resorting to violence, but the encounter with Wells had been a reminder of darker times. Wounds had been dealt, then, from which the Black Tower was still recovering.

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” Pevara asked once they were alone in Androl’s house. Although they were still bonded and planning to stay that way, they both had their own places; Pevara in the White Tower and Androl here at the Black Tower. It had seemed the most natural thing to do. They were partners in many senses of the word, but not lovers, and both preferred having their own space in their daily life.

“It was.” Androl glanced at her. “You were there, though, at the end. You saw it for yourself.”

“Yes.” She sat next to him, placing her hand on his arm. “But I was there only for a short time. You, and Logain and Emarin and this Wells, you had to endure it for a lot longer. I only saw a little bit… an extreme bit, but still only a glimpse of the cruelty you all lived with for months.” Androl had nothing to say to that, and he didn’t have to as Pevara kept talking, “It’s easy to… not _forget_ , never that, but maybe _dismiss_ everything you — the Asha’man as a whole — have been through because things turned out fine in the end.”  
Androl nodded slowly. “We make it easy, though,” he said. “We don’t exactly go around talking about the woes of our past.”

“You don’t,” Pevara agreed, “but maybe you should. How many suffer behind closed doors still, exactly because talking about it is frowned upon?”

Androl shrugged. He hadn’t thought of it that way. Sure, he knew that he didn’t like talking about the indignities he had suffered because of his low strength in the One Power and his initial block with channelling, and he knew that many had gone through much similar things. He had Pevara to talk to, and even he hadn’t been able to talk about everything. What of those who had no such close friends? What of those who had nobody to turn to? It had been three years now since the war, but time alone only did so much.  
“You know I have a point,” Pevara said when Androl still didn’t speak.

“What do you suggest?” Androl asked.

She gave him a level look. “I don’t know the Asha’man like you do,” she said gently. “I suggest we speak to Logain about this and device a plan together. I do not wish to overstep boundaries. This is something the Black Tower needs to do, without White Tower influence. But you need to do something.”

After another moment Androl nodded again. He stood up with a sigh; it appeared there was work to do. “Let’s go see Logain.”


End file.
